


turn my back and disappear

by doubtthestars



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Footy Ficathon, Gen, M/M, Mutant Powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-08 22:50:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3226433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doubtthestars/pseuds/doubtthestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steven Gerrard is not a professor, he's a fucking trouble magnet.</p><p>Xabi Alonso is an international man of mystery with a dangerous secret.</p><p>They are both mutants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	turn my back and disappear

Xabi throws the bottle in the air and pulls the trigger. The explosion causes the glass to scatter and cut Steven shallowly across the cheek. 

He tackles the Spanish man to the ground.

"You're mad. You're not doing this for us. You're doing this out of blind hatred." Xabi's teeth are pink with blood when he grins after some asshole in riot gear punched him and Stevie hates himself for using the other man like a human battery. The feedback loop makes him want to curl up in agony. It is whiplash and civil war in his mind but he yanks and yanks until the threads fall apart and Xabi is still. 

He leaves him with the thought: _Take care of them for me._

Steven wants to puke but hasn't got the time. He gives the signal to Nando and steels himself to face the armed forces still surrounding them.

This is the price they paid for humanity. He closes his eyes and walks calmly into the fray.

It is the last time any of them see Steven Gerrard.

***

Steven Gerrard was just trying to do his job. He wanted to help the kid, of course he did but this was insane.

He is only one man, his dad would say. You can change the world with only one man but don't forget a group is stronger than one so you better make good friends. Stevie guesses it's why Jordan Henderson showing up at his doorstep with a cut lip and bruises makes him reach his breaking point.

Jordi had packed a bag a few days later and left his parent's house for good while Steven decided to trade up his small car for a bigger, newer van type. 

Word started getting around. He wasn't sure how but suspected Jordan and some sort of word of mouth were to blame because he ended up with Daniel and Fernando on his doorstep in the coldest winter on record. He couldn't kick them out, he really couldn't. Not while knowing the riotous mass of hurt and loneliness these kids were experiencing because they were different.

So they carpooled to school. He got a nod from Brendan and was relieved this wasn't going to cost him his job.

Steven Gerrard was just a guidance counselor with an empty house that was slowly getting filled.

***

Xabi dealt in danger. He had grown up in the middle of war where little boy and girls knew how to tell if a man had a gun under his coat and the smell of burnt flesh still lingered on the streets. His brother had looked up to him with the same eyes of their father and cried from the pain, dying in his arms. 

He shook the memory off like the cold of the city. London had been on his radar for a while and after a narrow escape, Xabi decided it was good enough to keep a low profile. 

Adjusting his leather gloves, he opened the small door that led to the quiet pub. There are two other patrons at a table and another at the bar watching the news on mute. 

The report was on another demonstration against the mutants. He nodded at the bartender while taking a seat one over from the other man at the bar.

"It's a shame innit? No one knows who to blame for normal parents having mutant kids because they o' course don't wanna think it's them. So's a whole bunch of hate with nowheres to go." The older man was gruff-looking, salty and pepper hair, large build and poor accent. Xabi kept his expression neutral.

The bartender wiped down the bar and placed his pint down in front of him. He swallowed almost half of it before setting it back down. 

"Rough day, lad?" Xabi smiled.

"Something like that."

***

Jamie was on the police force and gave him a ring whenever he found someone he though was more in Stevie's area of expertise than a night spent in lock up, especially if they were minors.

Martin was one of those cases. They had broken up an illegal fighting ring and even though Martin was considered an adult legally, Jamie knew the kid was probably just as lost as the rascals in Stevie's care. Detective Carraghar suspected there was more than met the eye with Skrtel as he was suspiciously unmarked for being in the middle of a 12 to 1 challenge.

Jamie joked that Steven needed a new hobby, but enabled the man in his strange little shelter for lost boys.

"You could've adopted dogs instead of kids y'know?" Steven turned to him with serious eyes. The coffeepot in the corner the only sound in the room. 

"They're not strays. These kids, they have it tougher than I did. My ability isn't physical. It's not much use for anything besides helping others, and that's more getting properly educated on the subject than just _talent_. Some of 'em can't hide behind books, Carra. I was a one in a million shot when we were growing up but they're in a world where it's one in five hundred odds. How many people are in the North London alone? Do the math." Steven tapped a finger on the counter,

"Besides, somehow, I think if I could help them. It evens the playing field yeah? Do a little good for all the bad out there." Jamie frowned, because as much of a mind reader Stevie was, he was terrible at hiding his own emotions. He wore his heart on his sleeve and Jamie worried one day Stevie wouldn't be able to save the one person he should, himself.

The tap-tap-tap of his finger matched the plinking raindrops on the window. 

***

Philippe turned invisible when he was eight. His mother had screamed like he had just murdered someone in front of her. She cast him out of the house like a malevolent spirit, spitting on the ground he walked. 

He is fifteen when he finds Steven's door. Martin put out a word through his old friends from the gangs to the homeless that it was a safe haven for their kind. Philippe is practically mute, too shy to try to speak a foreign tongue. Daniel makes an effort to learn sign language and have Fernando translate a little, so the kids could understand Philippe's needs or wants.

It makes Steven's heart ache when he finally gets Philippe to smile, because it is a wonderful sight.

The only rule Stevie had for the kids was to finish or continue going to school, but Fernando and Philippe and Studge had never even gotten to high school, living on the streets or being locked away like an unwanted pet so Steven went back to school to get certified to homeschool. He had the older kids like Martin and Jordi supervise the younger ones with homework and most of it was online-based which saved Steven money on books.

Jamie helped sometimes on the weekend along with Didi to get the kids out and about, go to museums and parks so they wouldn't feel cooped up. 

Alex had helped him get resources, food and medical, important documents and Stevie thanked every lucky star of his that he had grown up with the most beautiful woman in the world who was much more capable than he.

There was a careful paper trail that left Steven Gerrard's house as a sort of halfway house for homeless teenagers and it made Stevie smile when Jordi came back home with a plaque:

'Gerrard Home for Rehabilitation'

The next day, Daniel's handwriting replaces the Rehabilitation with 'Young Misfits'. Jamie laughs about it for about a week.

***

Steven always knows if someone is a mutant. He's not sure how, if it's part of his ability or just a takes one to know one situation, but that is how he meets Xabier Alonso.

It is absurdly pedestrian. They bump into each in a grocer by the apples or maybe it was the potatoes. Either way, Steven gets a trace of coiled lockbox waiting to spring on him as he connects with Xabi. He gapes stupidly because he has never met another man around his age with a mutation in this part of town. 

_Shit, shit, don't be a mutant._ He hears clearly but realizes the other man's mouth isn't moving.

"What, what the hell is going on here?" Stevie hadn't ever been able to pluck whole sentences out of anybody. Is he a telepath? Maybe the connection between them is stronger like picking up a good signal on the radio as opposed to static with a few words.

Xabi looks like a cornered animal, half caught wanting to run and his human counterpart beating down the response with rationality. 

_don't be stupid Alonso, don't make a scene, remember you always have to be a ghost._ Stevie physically felt the man drag all of the nervous tension and fear into himself in that lockbox of emotion. 

"Alonso? Look, you got nothing to be afraid of from me. Sorry for the--feedback." Stevie gestured at his head. "If you've got time, I mean, I've never met anyone else like me. I live a couple streets down but I could get you a cup of tea?" Xabi is still tight-lipped, but something in him says to take the offer. 

He is not lonely, but he has been alone for a very long time.

"Xabi Alonso." the gloved handshake is perfunctory but Stevie is glad some of that dark cloud hanging about dissipated. 

"Your accent, from Spain are you? One of my kids sound like you." Xabi freezes for a second before nodding. Steven loads up his bags and goes to the self-check out.

"Is your wife from Spain then?" He is awkward and small-talk with this man felt forced. He could charm the pants off of a terrorist with a bomb strapped to his chest but an Englishman in the middle of grocery shopping is his Achilles heel. 

_Get it together._ Stevie tried to hum loudly in his head to avoid overhearing the other man's thoughts but he wasn't used to this side-effect of his ability. He almost didn't catch Xabi's question and laughed until he realized it was a valid response to 'kids'.

"Ah, no, I run a shelter for homeless teens. Get them studying and up on their feet and all that. Fernando's from Madrid." 

_I got shot in Madrid._ Xabi thinks and it is Stevie's turn to stand still in shock. 

Well, he's definitely sure he's never met anyone like Xabi Alonso before.

***

One of the arguments Xabi keeps pushing is training the boys(and single girl) and some of them have started agreeing with their Spanish guest.

"We should train, to defend ourselves." Jordan enters his study without a knock and Stevie acutely feels the years that have passed since Jordi had come into his home. Now, the young man helped him with the newcomers and helped him with record management. 

Steven rubbed his forehead. 

"I'm not arguing against that but I don't have the resources to help all of you hone your abilities. I wouldn't even know where to start. I'm-I can't help you guys with that." Stevie shrugs helplessly. His ability was empathy. It was all internal and cerebral and nothing like Jordi's fire flight or Martin's steel form. 

Jordan's eyes were soft when he realized what Stevie was admitting. He put a hand on his shoulder. 

"Xabi can. He'll know what to do, but that doesn't mean you can't help. You've helped us all along." The dad was omitted but Steven felt that familiar brush of affection. His boys(and girl) were all he had, but he couldn't prevent them from living up to their potential whether in studies or abilities.

"Okay, okay. Get Xabi, we'll have to make a schedule that goes around the boys' lessons." He warned but Jordi smiled brightly and rushed to get the other man.

It took less time than he thought to organize because Xabi had some connections in the warehouse district and special person in mind to lead the training. 

Nagore Aramburu was the picture of gorgeous and stood with enough spatial awareness that it made Stevie dizzy. Xabi had an iron will and liked to think he had a mastery of control but the vibe he got off Nagore was completely different, if anything Stevie would bet the woman was completely in control of herself all the time, moreso than Xabi. 

She shifted forms and Daniel let out a low whistle.

"That explains a lot." He looked at Xabi and Steven was oblivious to the teasing tendril of curiousity he got when he shook Nagore's hand in favor for reading his boys.

***

Stephanie was Irish and tiny for her age. She cast illusions of butterflies and frogs that hopped in her wake. She was a little fairy princess and Xabi snuck her sweets when Steven was distracted. She was the first girl to be left on their doorstep with a luggage case and a teddy bear. 

Steven tried to read the letter but was too distraught at the thought that someone would abandon this little girl and handed it over to Xabi. He took his tea with whiskey that night.

Xabi made it a point to leave on more trips to not get attached. No one in the House ever confronted him about his secrets. They were content with whatever you had to share and Steven in particular never made a comment until Stephanie started asking after him. 

"Stephanie missed you." _I missed you._ Xabi smiled faintly, tired and pale from blood loss or exhaustion, Stevie never found out.

It broke his heart that Xabi wouldn't stay, because in truth, Xabi wouldn't ever choose to stay permanently to make a home out of Steven's house like the boys. He had nightmares and stalked like an animal in a cage when he was inside for too long and Jamie always cast furtive looks when he was around. 

Didi outright asked the man if he was a spy. Xabi laughed. 

"No, what use would I be, surrounded by children?"

One night Steven heard Xabi on the phone, his voice low and angry, coiled like a snake ready to strike. He wasn't sure what he was saying but felt the broadcast of hurt twisted by sick, determined revenge like a vice around his heart and Stevie didn't know what helplessness truly was until that moment.

***

Xabi thought of Fernando as the son he would never have. The freckled little teenager he had been had grown into a young man and he was proud of contributing to that.

The worst part was the lack of fear he inspired in the boys after a year and a half.

"So when are you finally going to make a move on Stevie?" He zipped past with a sandwich and Xabi resisted the urge to cuff him around the neck. 

"None of your business, Nando." He zipped past again, getting Xabi's hair ruffled with the wind. 

"We all placed bets on it you know, but if you do it now, I'll win and I know I'm your favorite so you should really help me out." Xabi had half a smile on his face which meant he was amused but not in the way that meant trouble or extra training, just that he found it funny or curious. 

"Stephanie is my favorite." He stated calmly, which made Fernando stop and pout.

"Out of the boys, then." 

"Alright."

The next weekend, Xabi comes back with bandages wrapped around his torso and burns on his arm. Daniel and Jordi shared a look at the burns, being the one who knew extensively about the damage fire could inflict and their eternal rivalry as kids with opposing powers.

"Jesus, Xabi you have to see a doctor." Stevie frets with the teapot and doesn't say anything about Xabi sitting on the counter ever though he has reprimanded Martin for the same thing multiple times. Xabi breathes shallowly but steadily as he rewraps his arm. 

Steven's composure is slowly dwindling to nothing as he really looks over Xabi. He has a bruise on his cheek and marks on his neck that look like he was strangled with something. The burns and his ribs being bruised or broken round out the weight loss and fatigue that seemed to always be there.

"I have seen a doctor. I will heal." No, that wasn't enough.

"Why?" Stevie wished he could touch him so he could read his thoughts or maybe just try to beat some sense into him telepathically.

Xabi for once looks puzzled at the question and Stevie is so tired, but he's not sure if it is a bleed from Xabi himself or just him.

He briefly touches the gauze around his waist but doesn't linger, forcing his arms by his sides. 

"Why do you come back? I know you have to have safehouses or _something_ for your trips. Why do you keep coming back here?" It was urgent. It was desperation choking the words out of Stevie. He had to know the answer. 

Xabi's breath stutters, stops, because he doesn't understand the question, doesn't understand the layers. 

"Do you not want me to?" A shadow of doubt creeps into his usually confident voice. His whiskey colored eyes are hurt, more than his wounds.

"Jesus, no, of course I do, Xabi, I-you know the door is always open." He releases the breath he was holding and his ribs hurt a little more at the strain. Xabi understood the question now but didn't have an answer he was willing to share.

The kettle lets out its shrill noise and Steven is distracted.

***

He does not think to want encompasses all the emotion he feels for Steven. He thinks there must be a better way to explain but Stevie is abysmal with Spanish still.

Xabi reads to Stephanie from a book of poetry that Nando had tried to connect with as it was in his mother tongue but thought it too boring and discarded it a little while after. Xabi had picked it up in its abandoned space, remembering the words he rarely used anymore.

He hadnt been in Spain since he was nineteen, Nando's age now. 

Steph loved it as a bedtime story, quiet as a mouse as he read out loud about love and longing. Xabi always knew Stevie would take his time finishing up in his study on those nights because he stopped in front of the door to listen. And Xabi was preternaturally aware of Steven, always sensing his presence and he wondered if it was the same for him.

He had asked about his ability and how it related to people in the house.

"Can you tell the difference between Daniel being angry and Martin being angry?" Stevie licked his lips and nodded. 

"Yeah, of course, but it's different if everyone is angry for some reason. Then it gets harder to distinguish the flavor, the uh distinctness of the person in the cloud of anger." Xabi nodded, that made sense.

"Do you usually get thoughts? How far is your range?" Stevie looked at him funny but answered dutifully. 

"I get ideas. It's like....emotions are connected to thoughts and actions so I get a sort of bundle of that. Not clear cut thoughts like I did when I touched you. And I've never officially tested it but I think it also depends on the person's mental clarity and the strength of the emotion. I've got a pretty good gauge anyway." He furrowed his eyebrows in thought.

"What's with the questions anyway?" Xabi stands from his seat on the other side of the desk. 

"Curiousity." 

He doesn't mention the nights he imagines them together, trusting him enough to take off the gloves, to be naked not just physically but mentally as well, because Stevie could find all of his secrets if he held on long enough and Xabi would let him. 

Xabi projected his want through the walls of his room, to where Stevie lay, hoping it would reach him, hoping he would feel the heat of his dreams and thoughts and actions.

***

The house phone rings. Stevie is the only one in the house besides Steph and Studge who elected to take a nap instead of going out with Jamie and Didi and the rest.

"Hello?" There is panting over the line and he thinks it might be a prank call before he hears Xabi whisper.

"Get everyone out of the house. They know where you are. Get to the warehouse, not training. Nando will know which one." He hangs up and Steven is frozen, ice in his veins with terror and alarm in his brain. He wakes Studge up and carries Steph in his arms as he unlocks the car. 

He calls Jamie to rendezvous at the precinct and tells Studge to hold on to Steph tightly because he didn't have time to grab the carseat. No one was going to mess with his family.

At the warehouse, with Jamie to boot, they discover just how much Xabi's paranoia cost. 

"Stevie..." Jamie gestures almost speechlessly at the stockpiles of ammunition and guns and rations. It's a bunker and Nando had been helping Xabi with it without Stevie knowing. If he wasn't currently trying to ward off whatever Xabi had managed to send their way, he would've had a very careful set of words with the boy. 

"Jamie, just drop it, please. If it helps us, I don't care." They wait with the older boys taking watches and looking grim enough to spook a horse. Didi discreetly came in to take Jamie away and brought them food to last for two days.

They waited for the rest of the day but no sign of Xabi appeared. 

Daniel shook him awake, careful not to jostle Steph who was in Stevie's arms, both wrapped in the blankets Nando had handed out from somewhere in the warehouse. His legs were cramped and had probably lost feeling hours ago but he got up when he saw Xabi, handing over Steph to Daniel. 

"Oh god." He rushed over and his hands flitted over the Spaniard like hummingbirds touching various spots qucikly, reinforcing the fact that he was alive and with them. Stevie wanted to hug him. He wanted to pull him into his arms and feel his heart beat against his chest and smell the gun powder and clove scent of his skin up close but couldn't. 

"You and I are going to talk, alone." Xabi nods to the disappointment of the boys but they don't dare to argue with the tone Stevie used. 

They find a secluded spot as far away from the kids as possible. Stevie counted himself lucky enough that none of the had extra sensitive hearing. 

"What happened? Why do they want us? Is it because of your ability?" Steven takes a breath before he keeps piling onto the list of questions he wants answered. 

"I'm--Stevie, I'm so sorry. I don't know how they found out. Nagore is using her contacts to figure that out. I should have." He curses in Spanish and French and whatever else he knows but Stevie is running out of patience.

"Xabier, tell me why they are after us." 

"They think I was trying to break ranks, to get an army of mutants on my side. They could never trust a mutant, especially not one like me but I did everything they asked of me." Stevie closes his eyes, presses his palms into his eyesockets to keep from a meltdown. 

"They're kids. They're not soldiers, do they know that?" 

"I don't know! I'm flying blind." Xabi explodes and starts pacing. 

"What do they have to do with your power augmentation? Why do you work for them?" Stevie collects himself. He has to be calm. He can't show he's scared to those kids waiting on them.

"I killed people. I killed mutants and this is the last time. I am not some mindless weapon in their hands that cannot fire back." Xabi is shaking and Steven finally touches him, hugging like he wanted to.

He is swamped by fear and what if they kill them. I can't stop them all. I will not be my father but I cannot leave them. I have to fight. I have to win. I have to win so they forget about the kids. They have to forget about this. Stevie is calm, not feeding into the loop of emotions between them. He is oddly detached for the first time in his life. He reassures him, we'll get through this. We'll fight. We'll survive.

He calls over the kids for a war council.

***

Jamie calls in sick and Didi texts him that some spook came in to talk to the captain of the precinct with a van full of SWAT. He risks his neck and find all of them still in the warehouse. Xabi almost kneecaps him. 

"What a fucking welcome. Glad to see you're not dead, mate." Jamie is a touch sarcastic for Stevie's amusement and he grants him a small smile. 

"Jamie, I need you to take Stephanie back to your place until, until all of this is over." Jamie hears the thread of worry, the hint of maybe. He carries on blustering and giving all the boys a parting noogie until he reaches Stevie with Steph and heaves a big sigh.

He bends down to the little girl and smiles crookedly. 

"Well, what do you say Steph, ice cream and cookies at my place?" She lets go of Stevie's hand and he looks away for a second with glimmering eyes. Jamie swings her up to his shoulders. Stevie smiles and taps her nose.

"Be good, my fae child. Go to sleep when it's your bedtime." Jamie turns around to shake Xabi's hand. The little shock wasn't a suprise anymore but Jamie still finds it odd, another mystery about the enigma that stole his best mate's heart and lived with the children he felt like an uncle to. 

"You watch Stevie's back alright? Or me and you will have words." Xabi stares into his eyes for a long spell before smiling grimly.

"I would never forgive myself if I didn't." Jamie nodded, that was all he could hope for. 

Studge popped them straight into the living room and left.

"Well, it's a good day for the Lion King right?"

***

Xabi was beautiful when he fought. It was a grace attained through practice Steven was sure he had plenty. He efficiently took down men double his size and used anything and everything at his disposal. They had blown up the warehouses near them in warning but Xabi strolled out armed to the teeth. Jordi immediately engaged his ability to be their eye in the sky and hit anything that moved towards them with a fireball.

Steven kept Studge close or rather, Studge kept him in his range as per Xabi's orders. As the only one with a non-combative mutation, Stevie was the weakest link but refused to back down, citing Xabi was just as vulnerable, knowing it wasn't true. Stevie took some guns out of spite.

Xabi struggled to break free from a group of SWAT and Martin roared out before barreling into them, knocking heads together to help Xabi get through the sea of riot gear to the man in charge.

The newscopter in the air is noisy and fanning the smoke of the burning buildings all over the place. 

Steven shouts: get me closer to Xabi. and Studge nods as he takes his hand.

Philippe is literally making people fall into the ground with his boosted power and Daniel is using precision blasts to freeze the barrels of their guns. 

He pops next to Xabi as he started shouting, desperately fighting against the ones in his way. _He is getting away!_ Stevie hears clearly among the murmur of other thoughts. 

They are declaring this a war on mutants. They are going to blame them for organizing an attack. He sees Xabi throw a grenade and knows he is too far gone in his past wounds and knows what he has to do. He orders Studge to start evacuating the others.

He goes to Xabi, unafraid of the men in between them. Stevie touches them and they are docile, laying down their guns and turning away. 

Stevie wonders for a moment if this will change Xabi. 

He decides it doesn't matter.

**Author's Note:**

> just fuck me up. title comes from The Bravery's Above and Below.


End file.
